I write from a municipality a little to the south, respectfully asking that you give this matter some more serious thought. I understand that whether or not to support the adding of chemical fluoride to the drinking water supply is to be debated further in council.

As a biological scientist by original training, and a public health worker over much of my career, it has taken a lot of study to properly get my head around what is going on with the lobby groups that agitate FOR and AGAINST fluoridation. From 2002 to 2009 I was working in a regional health service in Geelong, VIC, when the VIC government began a concerted push to introduce fluoridation. I studied the matter intensely, including speaking to numerous USA and UK experts. Finally I found myself having an opposite position to the government officials and local health officials who were drafted into promoting and getting a pro-fluoridation decision through.

The same problems I outlined in 2005 apply to most of the rhetoric in support of fluoridation now. The arguments don’t stack up, as professors of medicine, dentistry, and even Nobel Prize winners continue to point out to the small number of countries that keep the fluoridation experiment going.

1. Advocates try to make out that if you VOTE AGAINST fluoridation you will be harming children’s health.

This emotive argument does not have good science behind it. If it was true then countries that reject fluoridation, like Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden (and the rest of Europe) would have much more tooth decay than Sydney and Melbourne. They do not. Netherlands, for example, consistently tops the world table for low rates of tooth decay. They neither fluoridate their water nor their salt or milk supplies!

Likewise, in the USA (the main country that practices fluoridation) those states that have little or no fluoridation, like Hawaii, DO NOT have more tooth decay than the average of other states. Most of the worst states for tooth decay have been entirely fluoridated for many decades. Fluoridation appears to be a poor answer to the problems of tooth decay.

When you look between the lines at the Australian data you can also see that there is little solid evidence that fluoridation has achieved anything.

Advocates will tell you that tooth decay has decreased hugely over the 4 or 5 decades of fluoridation. Unfortunately for their argument, that reduction in decay occurred just as much in Brisbane (not fluoridated till a couple of years ago) as it did in the other capital cities. By 1990 the incidence of tooth decay in Brisbane 12 year olds had dropped to about 20% of what it was in 1950. Melbourne, Sydney and other cities, with fluoridation, did not drop quite that much. The inescapable conclusion is that non-fluoridation resulted in as much improvement in tooth decay figure as did fluoridation. Other factors, and NOT fluoridation, caused this great improvement over the second half of the twentieth century. These findings have been well written up in a number of scientific publications – but for reasons best known to them are routinely ignored by those public health officials who are charged with trying to get fluoridation implemented everywhere.

I would be very happy to provide you with literature and data and scientific references for all of this should you wish. However it is not hard to find for yourself. A group of scientists have put much of it together in the scientific database on www.fluoridealert.org

Do not let anyone fool you that that website is is not highly professional and scientific. It is the best compilation of scientific reviews on fluoridation you can find anywhere.

2. The matter of forcing an entire community, every woman, man and child, to consume fluoride from their kitchen tap every day forever is an extremely serious concern.

It is a power over people’s bodies and lives, over their autonomy, that in reality councils and governments should not have.

Australia is signatory to a number of international treaties and human rights agreements that expressly forbid enforced healthcare treatment. That is, treaties and charters that state that individual doctors, or public health bodies, must have the ‘Informed Consent’ of any individual before administering a health treatment to them.

Advocates of fluoridation often try to argue that this principal does not apply to their efforts to administer fluoride to the community via the water supply. But it does; it must. Water fluoridation is a health treatment. Every booklet and leaflet promoting fluoridation makes health claims about it. All claim that it reduces tooth decay. Many promo booklets even claim that it reverses tooth decay (“like a repair kit for you teeth in every glass of water”). This very clearly makes it a dental / medical health treatment in anybody’s book.

There are excellent reasons why the universal human rights treaties most respected across the globe forbid forcing treatments upon people and communities. These treaties were established following World War 2, to prevent the recurrence of those abuses that stripped away victims’ health autonomy during those dark years. Fluoridation unfortunately strips away families and individuals’ health autonomy now.

Even if only one person per 1000 experienced health side-effects from consuming fluoride it would be enough to say it is wrong to mass treat the community. And most evidence shows that it is much more than one in 1000, more like 5 to 10 per hundred who get noticeable side-effects, and still insufficient evidence to know if it is causing bone, thyroid gland and other health damage over the long term for far more than 5 or 10 per hundred. There is no sound evidence for safety because, surprisingly & shockingly, no proper safety studies have ever been performed. There is partial evidence that small intakes of fluoride, over time, causes a host of health problems. But the comprehensive and conclusive safety studies that should be performed, have simply never been done.

Dear councillor, I would be most happy to talk with you further, to send you further material, or if necessary to journey to Lismore to address council or any group.

There is far more to this issue of fluoride administration than is presented by NSW health representatives, or for that matter, the Australian Dental Association. In some ways it is nothing to do with them, but a matter of the rights and autonomy of the ordinary woman, man and child of your district.

One comment on “Re: FLUORIDE via the kitchen tap”

I applaud you David McRae. Thank you so much for posting this letter….and your 2005 opinion….terrific! Would really appreciate to read more to keep the ‘fires’ stoked. I’m sure many others who are also at the ‘grindstone’ trying to stop water fluoridation will get a real ‘motivational pick-me-up’ from your contribution.